FISHING IN THE MEDITERRANEAN 



made fast ashore or to a smack ; a second, almost as long, 

 is then shot parallel to the coast, making with the first 

 net either a T or a cross, and these are left in that 

 position for at least twenty-four hours. When a sufficient 

 number of fish have been covered, the towing-in begins ; 

 the anchors are pulled up, and a line fastened to each wing 

 is rapidly carried ashore by boats. The towlines being 

 pulled very swiftly often by horse-power not only the 

 fish that are already caught by the gills are brought in, 

 but also those that happen to be within reach of the two 

 wings. 



The moment the net is drawn into a specially prepared 

 shallow, the fish find themselves enclosed above and below, 

 and there is no possible escape for them. Then the kill- 

 ing ; this is unsportsmanlike, but all fishing is apt to be 

 so when money is the sole end in view. The poor fish, 

 mewed up so closely that you can't tell one from another, 

 are speared at leisure from the boats with harpoons till 

 all are dead. They are then disembowelled and quartered 

 and taken ashore for boiling, for the sake of their oil, 

 which is valuable and plentiful, one fish alone sometimes 

 yielding twenty gallons. Tunny-fishing gives employment 

 to more than three thousand men in the two islands, 

 much of the work in Sicily being done by convicts. 



Another Sicilian industry, now on the wane although 

 popular among the ancients, is pinna-gathering, the 

 " pinna " being a member of the pearl-mussel family. 

 The shell is immense, about the size of a very large meat- 

 dish, and is gathered by wading and rock-scrambling. 

 The fish itself is a secondary matter, though it is largely 



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